Charlemagne's notebook

LAST night, I was invited to debate the wave of strikes underway across Europe on the BBC World Service. Preparing to go on "Europe Today" and tussle with a representative of an international trade union federation, I spent a while Googling about to establish just who, exactly, has been on strike in Europe this week. It was an instructive exercise, and even a little cheering. In Greece, Spain and France, which saw the most industrial action in the euro zone, the strikers were hardly your average citizen, let along members of a struggling underclass. They were, in a striking number of cases, public sector workers whose special privileges mark them out as notorious rent-seekers, even by the standards of European civil services, or workers in companies with such political clout that they are immune from the summary redundancies and wage freezes that affect other industries.

In Greece, the strikers have included customs officers and tax collectors: workers who not only enjoy special tax free allowances and early retirement on big pensions, but also include in their ranks some of the most notoriously corrupt officials in Greece, known for their willingness to take bribes in order to allow the wealthy to avoid paying their taxes (a big reason why Greece is broke). The public sector workers were striking, among other things, against plans to increase their retirement age from 61 to 63 (when many European countries are talking about raising it from 65 to 67). Greek taxi drivers are due to strike against plans to open their closed profession. It is symptomatic of the unhealthy power of the trade unions that the Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, was forced to "clarify" what he meant when he said that in the future civil servants could not expect a job for life. According to Kathimerini, the Greek government spokesman hastened to assure unions that: "Pangalos meant that when someone in the public service retires, it is not certain his replacement will also have a job for life." In other words, today's civil servants need never fear redundancy.

In Spain, the public sector trade unions have been vocal in their anger about austerity measures under discussion, including freezes in pay and a rise in the legal retirement age. Spain is, as discussed here before, a country with a horrible, immoral two-tier labour market, in which older workers with permanent contracts are extremely expensive to fire, while young people and immigrants struggle by on short-term temporary contracts that discourage firms from training them and investing in them. It is notable that the wave of strikes called this week was a flop (though the weather was bad, in fairness). Here is a report from Reuters:

One newspaper poll showed almost half of Spaniards would support a general strike against increasing the retirement age. But Tuesday's turnout will reinforce suspicions that Spanish unions, which represent only 16 percent of workers, would struggle to bring the country to a halt. "The unions were powerful in the past, but they've lost it. They have much more influence in times of economic boom," said Juan Carlos Rodriguez, of Madrid consultancy Analistas Socio-Politicos. Protesters in Madrid were overwhelmingly middle-aged or older and representatives of Spain's large immigrant population were almost completely absent. The unions also seemed to fail to attract support from people without full-time employment.

It is equally notable that El País, a centre-left newspaper as well as the country's best quality daily, goes big this morning on the question of public sector wages, but not from an especially sympathetic perspective. Their report today notes:

Civil service salaries have risen ahead of inflation in recent years. The pay rise in 2009 is especially striking, as it was around 3.5% while consumer prices rose by a mere 0.8% that year. Higher salaries as well as an increase in staff numbers resulted in an annual rise of 5.4% in personnel costs in the public administration in 2009.

That does not read like a wave of sympathy to me.

In France, the two most newsworthy protests teeter on self-parody. The first involves French air traffic controllers, a band of pirates whose ability to paralyse the skies over France has left them with outrageous perks and privileges, spelled out in minute detail in a recent report by the Cours des Comptes, the powerful French budgetary watchdog. According to the court's report, senior management have no idea how many days a year their staff actually work, because they long ago ceded control of their staff to secretive heads of unit, who have the power to award "clearances" for staff to take extra days off when they are not needed. Nobody denies that being an air traffic controller is a high-stress job, which needs well-rested workers. But as far as anyone can tell, French air traffic controllers work around 100 days a year, or fully five weeks fewer than their colleagues at Eurocontrol, a centralised air traffic control network based in the Netherlands. In return, some are paid more than €7000 a month. They are on strike to protest against any change in their protected employment terms and conditions. Poor lambs.

Moving to the private sector, workers at the Dunkirk oil refinery of the giant energy firm Total are still on strike, after colleagues at other French Total refineries returned to work. The Dunkirk workers are striking because Total has said it has refinery overcapacity in France, and needs to close some of its production sites to save hundreds of millions of euros a year. This being France, the government has already summoned Total bosses to secure assurances that the site at Dunkirk will not be closed completely, and that not one worker will lose their job. That was enough for national union bosses to recommend an end to industrial action. But the militant hard-left union SUD rules the roost at the Dunkirk site, and secured a vote by raised hands to keep on striking.

This posting is not an attack on all trade unions, or even all strikes. There are some genuinely tragic stories out there in this recession. For example, in Belgium, shop workers from the Carrefour supermarket chain are braced for a nationwide strike over plans to lay off nearly 2,000 staff at Belgian stores and depots. According to Le Soir newspaper, a 32 year old cashier with five years' experience at Carrefour is paid €1,705 a month, gross. After Belgian taxes and social security charges are deducted, that is a brutally small amount to live on. I have not researched Belgian supermarkets in detail, but headlines have accused Carrefour of poor management in Belgium for years, and anecdotally this makes sense to me. Carrefour stores in Belgium are notably more expensive than the local market leader, Colruyt, and they are not nearly as well-stocked or attractive as Carrefour stores in France. I would be inclined to blame the fate of Carrefour workers on their senior management, who have run the company badly.

My point is political. For the moment, newspapers across the world are full of pictures of strikes in Greece, Spain and France, and photographs of anarchists punching policemen in Athens. You could easily get the impression that the ordinary workers of Europe are about to explode in rage, making it impossible for their governments to push through the painful austerity measures that are, alas, needed in so many European countries. But for the moment the reality on the ground is different. An awful lot of people on the streets are those who cannot lose their jobs, which makes them a privileged minority in a nasty recession, and they are protesting to defend perks and pay that others can only dream of. I hope European politicians are watching, and concluding that they have an opportunity here, to tell the truth to their voters about the mess they are in, and what needs to be done to fix it. I think most European voters know this is a big crisis, and though they are angry about bankers and speculators and what have you, they also know that everyone has been living beyond their means. As long as the burden is seen to fall fairly, we may get through this yet.

TWICE now, I have written columns in the print edition about Catherine Ashton, the new European Union foreign policy chief, and the deafening (though off the record) clamour from national governments that she must assert more independence from the European Commission. Lady Ashton serves both national governments and the commission, and the consensus is she needs to be seen as equidistant between those two camps.

Yet the commission's president, José Manuel Barroso is accused of trying to seize control of her new diplomatic service before it even starts work. The private grumbling reached a new pitch last week after news broke that Mr Barroso had pre-empted the creation of the new European External Action Service, and chosen the next EU ambassador in Washington. The incumbent is a former Irish prime minister, John Bruton, and plenty of EU politicians would like to see a similar heavyweight, political figure get the job. Instead, Mr Barroso has chosen a career Brussels official from his native Portugal, João Vale de Almeida (who was until a few months ago the head of Mr Barroso's private office). In theory the appointment was made under the old rules, which operated before the Lisbon Treaty came into force on December 1st 2009, when overseas missions of the EU were delegations of the European Commission. In practice, most if not all foreign ministers found out about the appointment only very recently, and they are hopping, because they were not consulted.

Though Mr Vale de Almeida is currently the director-general of the foreign policy arm of the European Commission, he is still Mr Barroso's foreign policy sherpa (ie, his personal envoy to things like the G20). Though no doubt he will resign that post before going to America, to many national governments, his career history raises the prospect that he will be seen in Washington not purely as an EU envoy, or Lady Ashton's envoy, but as partly the eyes and ears of Mr Barroso.

That clamour is about to go public. It is currently late on Sunday. As EU foreign ministers began arriving in Brussels tonight for their monthly meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, I gather that the talk has all been about a letter sent by Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, to Lady Ashton. In it, Mr Bildt (arguably the most serious and heavyweight foreign minister in the EU, thanks to years of international experience and a stint as prime minister of his country), demands a discussion of how Mr Vale de Almeida came to be nominated for the EU's most senior overseas post.

Mr Bildt's letter, dated February 19th, asks Lady Ashton how the nomination of Mr Vale de Almeida came about, without applying the very principles governing such appointments which are currently the subject of discussion among the 27's EU ambassadors. The letter also seeks clarification about the impression that the nomination was made without Lady Ashton playing the leading role set out for her in the Lisbon Treaty.

Is there any prospect of Mr Vale de Almeida's appointment being reversed? I must admit, I do not see how that can happen without causing a scandal that leaves the EU worse off. The EU's biggest diplomatic partners, from America to China or Russia, are already slack jawed with amazement at the squabbling that has broken out since the Lisbon Treaty came into force. Yet Mr Bildt is not alone in his desire for answers, I am told. Other foreign ministers are incredulous about the way this appointment has been handled.

Only one person can sort this out: Lady Ashton. Her great strength, on paper, is that she represents both national governments and the commission (ie, she has political clout and access to the commission's deep pockets and armies of civil servants). That dual mandate is also her biggest headache. She was never the favourite of the national governments when it came to getting her gigantic new job. She became foreign policy chief as the result of complex horse-trading, and her only hope of making the job work is to show that she is the autonomous boss of a genuinely new foreign policy machine. That means risking a big dust-up with Mr Barroso. Now may be the time to start just such a row.

UPDATE on Monday afternoon:

Blimey. I think we can safely conclude Carl Bildt is quite cross about this nomination. And that he may not be first in line for coffee and natas with Ambassador Vale de Almeida, on any future visits to Washington DC. Kind colleagues from DPA, the German press agency, have passed on some comments they obtained from the Swedish foreign minister as he entered the Brussels meeting today.

Mr Bildt told DPA:

"There was evidently a decision taken by the commission last week to downgrade the way in which we are represented in Washington. I don't know which motives the commission had for that. I'm not quite sure it is in conformity with the Lisbon ambitions we should have, but we'll see."

Assuming that Mr Vale de Almeida will still go to Washington as EU ambassador (which I do assume), this is not exactly an endorsement from Mr Bildt. That matters, because all foreign ambassadors struggle for face time in Washington, at the best of times. And Mr Bildt is one of the very few European foreign ministers with any name recognition on the DC foreign policy circuit. Mr Vale de Almeida now goes to America bearing the label: "seen as a lightweight by Carl Bildt, and less important than John Bruton." He may care to pack some good books, to while away quiet Washington evenings.

THE Flemish newspaper De Morgen asked me to write them an op-ed on Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian (and Flemish) politician who just organised his first summit as President of the European Council. It appeared in their weekend edition in translation. Here is my original text in English:

MOST disputes in the European Union are struggles over money, or power. The “informal” summit of EU leaders called for February 11th by Herman Van Rompuy was intended to demonstrate the powers he wields in the new role of President of the European Council. Mr Van Rompuy has the power to assemble the 27 heads of state and government and to set the agenda for their discussions—in this case, he wanted them to confront them with a serious question: how do we make Europe dynamic enough to pay for all the social entitlements that our citizens expect? He has the power to cajole and persuade leaders and guide them, gently, towards a consensus. That was the plan for February 11th, anyway. Events decided otherwise. The informal summit to discuss economic growth became a crisis meeting to discuss ways to stop Greece toppling into bankruptcy. Suddenly, Mr Van Rompuy found himself chairing a heated discussion about money, and immediately one of the big limitations of his new job revealed itself.

Mr Van Rompuy is a president without a country behind him—a president without money. So when a European Union crisis explodes that only money can fix, he will always be overshadowed by leaders who are putting their own taxpayers’ billions on the table. Such leaders are not just making a financial sacrifice for Europe when they dig deep into their pockets. They are taking a political risk. In one opinion poll, by the Emnid institute, for instance, 71% of Germans opposed financial aid for Greece. Mr Van Rompuy has no voters to fear. So in such disputes, he is a non-combatant: a counsellor but not a player.

Officials report that there was a moment, two days before the summit, when Mr Van Rompuy feared that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy would reach a Franco-German deal by themselves, and announce it before the summit. The European Council president worked hard to persuade the two leaders to wait, and bring their draft agreement to Brussels. Endorsement by 27 countries, he told them, would lend their political statement added weight.

Mr Van Rompuy got his way: the French and German leaders drafted a final deal in his office in the hideous Justus Lipsus complex near Schuman roundabout. That allowed the Belgian to announce a statement of support for Greece in the more elegant setting of the snow-covered Leopold Park, up the hill (even if, in a sign of Mr Van Rompuy’s lack of showbusiness experience, he had to deliver the statement twice, because he was inaudible to reporters the first time).

However, Mr Van Rompuy was disappointed to discover how vague that statement would have to be. He had thought Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy close to an agreement on a rescue plan for Greece. However, with her own coalition in Germany divided, Mrs Merkel came to Brussels on a mission to stop any discussion of detailed scenarios, senior diplomats say. She cited constitutional reasons why Germany might not be able to bail out Greece, and told fellow leaders she did not trust Greece’s austerity plan.

Mr Van Rompuy discovered another limitation to his role at the summit. Once Greece was out of the way, the leaders turned to his original agenda—how to revive economic growth in Europe. Mr Van Rompuy had prepared a discussion paper, as had the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.

But, as a president without his own economy to manage, Mr Van Rompuy’s paper carried little weight, and was swiftly forgotten as a chaotic discussion broke out leaders, diplomats say. Instead, Mr Barroso used the greatest power of the European Commission—its sole right to propose new legislation—to propose a raft of concrete measures.

In case Mr Barroso’s victory was not understood, his aides printed up his PowerPoint slides into a glossy brochure. While Mr Van Rompuy was still invisibly behind the scenes, mid-afternoon, commission press officers could be seen wheeling trolleys laden with Barroso-brochures into the Justus Lipsius complex, for distribution to journalists.

It is telling that the biggest buzz at the summit was felt at the joint Sarkozy-Merkel press conference on the second floor of the Justus Lipsius. French reporters hammered away at Mr Sarkozy about the vagueness of the plan. “Speculators” need to hear the message that Europe has a strategy for Greece, the French president insisted: the tactics could be worked out later. In contrast, German reporters peppered the chancellor with questions about why and how Germany should have to bail out Greece. She stressed Greek promises to get its house in order, and endure tough monitoring.

Downstairs, in the main press theatre of the Justus Lipsius, Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy shared the official summit press conference. There was no buzz in the air. As Mr Van Rompuy calmly answered questions in a low monotone, an air of desperate boredom gripped journalists. Journalists knew they should be paying attention: Mr Van Rompuy is an important and serious man. But an unworthy thought lurked in every brain: five more years of this?

WITH apologies for cross-posting, your blogger has just written a first take on today's promise of a Greek bailout for the news section of the website. Here it is. More considered thoughts later:

“PRETTY catastrophic”. That was the verdict of a depressed-looking diplomat, at the end of a Brussels summit on Thursday February 11th that saw European Union leaders issue a ringing, but alarmingly vague, pledge of “determined and co-ordinated action” to preserve the euro zone from the risk of a Greek sovereign default.

The vagueness of the bail-out promise was no mystery. After years of footing the bills for successive Euro-crises, Germany is in a truculent mood. Of the 16 countries that share the single currency, most came to Brussels ready to spell out, in some detail, how they might come to the aid of Greece, without breaching “no bail-out” rules that prevent the union from assuming the debts of countries in the euro zone.

Leaders had originally been summoned to Brussels for an “informal” summit about ways to make Europe more dynamic. But they knew the markets would react badly if they met without offering a strong signal of support for Greece, in the eye of a storm since the incoming government of George Papandreou admitted that the country’s budget deficit had been massively understated, and in fact exceeds 12%.

There had been talk of bilateral loans from rich countries, accelerated payments of EU structural funds, or special loans guaranteed by the union.

But the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, would not—or could not—endorse anything more than a political declaration that the euro zone is throwing its weight behind Greece. This offer of “solidarity” was made in exchange for Greek pledges to cut its budget deficit by 4% this year by enforcing harsher than expected austerity measures.

Officials briefed on the leaders’ talks said that Mrs Merkel talked of constitutional hurdles that made it hard for Germany to offer Greece bilateral aid. She also expressed scepticism about Mr Papandreou’s deficit reduction plans, and led calls for Greece to submit to unprecedented monthly monitoring of its public finances by the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

There was a strong whiff of politics in the air. German voters have been paying more than their fair share for European construction for years. Germany’s big fear when it abandoned the deutschmark, just over a decade ago, was that it would end up rescuing more profligate countries in the euro zone. Now those fears are coming true.

Politicians from Mrs Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), have expressed scepticism that what Greece needs is more money from the EU, after wasting billions from Brussels on a bloated public sector, corruption and uncompetitive enterprises. Speaking in parliament in Berlin on the summit eve, Frank Schaeffler, a deputy FDP finance spokesman, said an alcoholic is not helped “by being given another bottle of schnapps.”

Yet money will almost certainly be found for Greece, if it is needed. German and French banks hold tens of billions of euros in Greek debt, and a Greek default could spread contagion among other vulnerable economies in the euro zone, including much larger countries such as Spain. For the moment, EU leaders appear to be gambling that a political statement of support will be enough to make markets back off.

In a joint press conference with Mrs Merkel, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy said euro-zone countries were offering “solidarity” in exchange for Greek promises of “rigour and transparency”. This would give Greece’s promises vital “credibility”, he said. Challenged on the lack of detail in the summit declaration, Mr Sarkozy said “speculators should understand” that Europe had agreed a strategy for defending the euro zone, and “we will come up with tactics as needed.”

That swipe at speculators probably offers a hint about the political tactics that Mrs Merkel and other leaders may employ to sell any Greek bailout to voters. Already, politicians including José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, have portrayed market pressure on their countries as part of a broader plot by murky market forces who want to destroy the euro, and fight off tougher financial regulation within the EU. Expect to hear more about European political solidarity versus the speculators.

Sceptical commentators in places such as America and Britain have long underestimated the political will within the euro zone to defend the single currency, which was always as much a political as an economic project. Both Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel said at the Brussels summit that the current economic crisis had generated support across the EU for much closer co-ordination of economic policies within the union. Both talked about moving towards an “economic government” for Europe. In truth, those words are pretty empty: they mean one thing to Germany and other governments wedded to budget discipline and strict independence for the ECB, and something very different to more interventionist countries like France.

EU leaders may have underestimated the political risks they are running by taking on direct responsibility for rescuing Greece in exchange for tough austerity measures, with IMF officials playing only a technical role as advisers. The EU has traditionally been popular in Greece, where it is often more trusted than the national government. The IMF is used to being hated in countries where its technocrats step in to rescue bankrupt governments. The EU may soon learn the same feeling.

JUST when Greece looked like taking the prize for conspiracy theories (see previous posts), members of the Spanish government have cast caution to the winds and declared their economy is the victim of a still vaster plot that goes beyond profiteering and a desire to destroy the euro (the charges levelled in Greece). No, according to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister, and José Blanco, his transport minister, the conspiracy goes beyond financial speculators to take in opinion-writers from the foreign press, whose goal is to derail European attempts to regulate financial institutions and markets more tightly.

Mr Blanco told Cadena Ser radio that attacks on Spain were attacks on the euro, and were "rather dirty dealings" on the part of speculators, who:

"now that they see we are emerging from the crisis, do not want to see better regulation of their activities, [but] want to be free to carry on pursuing their own interests... None of what is happening, including editorials in some foreign media with their apocalyptic commentaries, is happening by chance, or innocently. It is the result of certain special interests."

Here is Mr Zapatero:

"There is an attack underway by speculators against the euro, against tougher financial regulation of the financial system and of the markets".

Just for the record, I would like to point out, as someone paid to write opinions in The Economist, that I take no pleasure in the problems currently hitting Spain, a magnificent country whose woes matter precisely because it is such an important member of the euro zone and the EU. I was invited on Spanish television last night (the evening news on Antena 3), and tried to make this point (though whether my dodgy Spanish accent allowed this message to be understood, is another matter).

I am thus relieved and happy to report that this morning's Spanish press reacted to their government's conspiracy theories with a torrent of good sense. Outlet after outlet poured scorn on the conspiracy theories, and advised Mr Zapatero and his team to focus on sorting out the mess in their economy. "Speculation yes, conspiracy no" said Miguel Jiménez in an excellent comment piece for El País, the best Spanish daily (and a centre left newspaper traditionally supportive of the ruling socialists). Mr Jiménez notes that Mr Blanco was only saying what plenty of his colleagues think privately, up to and including speculation that the former conservative prime minister, José María Aznar is somehow involved, because he is a consultant to News Corporation, publishers of the Wall Street Journal. Yes, says Mr Jiménez, there is good evidence of speculation against the euro, but that is what markets do. Markets also overreact and panic. The way to deal with panicking markets is to reassure them with rational arguments and solid facts, as the Spanish junior economics minister, José Manuel Campa did on a roadshow to London yesterday.

The main leader in El País today goes further, arguing that you do not need conspiracies to sow doubts about the soundness of Spain's finances: the government is doing such a good job of bungling its economic management all by itself. The leader recalls the recent shambles surrounding a proposal to shore up Spain's pensions system by changing the way pension payouts are calculated. This proposal was included in a deficit reduction plan due for submission to the European Commission, but was then dumped amid deep divisions within the government and fears of a general strike. The leader also attacked the Spanish government for presenting austerity plans which only make sense if you assume Spain will achieve 3% growth by 2012, or can cut €50 billion in public spending without eliminating a single government department. It is that kind of talk that makes Spain lose credibility as a sovereign borrower, says the paper.

So why did Mr Zapatero say what he said? For some, it is a simple case of shooting the messenger. The Alphaville blog on the Financial Times calls Mr Blanco's theories "a little bit paranoid".

Maybe. But I also think something more subtle and serious is going on, that should worry those of us who believe the EU is (among other things) a fairly  impressive experiment in free market liberalism. These are rough and ready first thoughts, written on a train to Strasbourg, so bear with me. But I think a big problem is that we liberals were too quick to assume during the good years of economic growth and convergence in Europe that everyone shared our basic conception of European construction: that it is a grand bargain of redistribution in exchange for liberalisation. Put another way, liberals have high hopes for the single market because its removal of internal barriers to competition allows Europe to use the competitive advantages offered by its diversity: ie, companies in Germany or Sweden benefit from their workers' high productivity and high added value from innovation, while outsourcing less skilled production to lower cost countries in Poland or Slovakia (or Spain) where workers can offset their lower productivity with lower wage and social costs. And the whole EU benefits.

But government leaders in places like Spain and France, or the new President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, are currently talking about the need for more policy co-ordination and European "economic government". And when they say that, I think they come close to treating the diversity of the 27 member union as a problem. Some European leaders see globalisation as a threat that has robbed individual nations of power against the forces of capital. They accept that individual nations are no longer big enough units to resist globalisation, but hope the EU as a whole offers sufficient scale to re-assert the will of elected politicians over market forces. For such politicians, the current crisis has exposed liberal talk of deregulation and liberalisation as a sham and a fraud that briefly allowed some countries (eg, Britain) to flourish by allowing global capitalists to play regulatory arbitrage. If they can just push for more harmonisation of fiscal, environmental or labour laws, that will prevent capitlalists from moving around the EU in search of regulatory or social cost advantages.

This, I think, explains what Mr Zapatero means when he says speculators are attacking Spain and the euro to block moves towards tougher regulation of the markets. At first blush, that sounds like a silly conspiracy theory. After all, how exactly does shorting Spanish debt make it more or less likely that the EU will impose tough regulations on hedge funds, say? You could argue that the politics is more likely to work the other way: if there is a major crisis in the euro zone requring a bailout, politicians may well feel still more like saviours of the world, whose duty is to rein in high finance.

But seen another way, I think Mr Zapatero is just reflecting a worldview that sees the eurozone as the powerbase of intervention-minded states on a mission to challenge the arrogance of market power.

A big ideological argument looms. This posting is already too long, so I shall stop here. But my basic worry is that the EU's focus on harmonisation boils down to a search for ways to shield high-cost, highly-regulated European ways of doing things from competition. Put another way, I think free-market liberals need to listen carefully to even the wildest complaints of Spanish politicians, because they reflect a much deeper dispute.

YOUR blogger has been travelling, and on his travels has picked up a strong theme of complaint about an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy, or something approaching one, to do down the euro and distract from the woes of the dollar and the pound. It has popped up in the Spanish press, the French, the Greek and others: a theory that rumours are being spread about the weakness of southern European economies for two reasons. First, because the British have always hated the euro (and the Americans feel threatened by it) and they yearn to see it crumble. Secondly, because the British and Americans are desperate to distract attention from their own crumbling finances.

I fear I do not buy these conspiracies, and nor should anyone in Spain, Greece, Portugal or elsewhere. Here is why, point by point. Are markets in London or New York seething with exaggerated, stereotype-laden rumours being spread about the weakness of public finances in southern Europe, and the chances of sovereign default [corrected]? Yes, but it is not a plot. It is a panic: that is how markets work. Do many British newspapers over-estimate the chances of a euro-zone breakup? Absolutely. Do some big conservative newspapers in Britain hate the euro? Yes. But the driving force of that hatred is directed inwards: the main conservative argument in Britain is about how Britain should not join the euro, and did well not to join in the 1990s. It is a domestic argument, essentially, about Britain's relationship with Europe. And, it should be noted, lots of people in the City of London who would not want Britain to join the euro make a great deal of money trading in euro-denominated products. The British are both ideological and pragmatic.

Look more widely, and you will see plenty of commentary about how Britain has benefited recently from an effective devaluation, as a strong euro and weak pound artificially boost British exports (actually, the evidence on this is mixed). Finally, even the most conservative and Eurosceptic newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, are not so much gleeful about trouble in the eurozone, as worried it will spread contagion to the British or American economies.

Here is the Daily Mail scaremongering about the euro, for example, in a tone likely to set teeth on edge in Athens or Madrid:

Stock markets tumbled worldwide yesterday amid fears that crippling debt levels in southern Europe could destabilise the euro and derail economic recovery. Portugal and Spain became the latest Eurozone countries to cause a panic among investors, as economists cast doubt on their ability to control their national debt. With Greece already expected to need a bail-out of up to £16billion from the European Central Bank, there are real concerns that the Eurozone may become unviable in its present form

But look at what comes next in the same piece:

Some economists say the turbulence in Europe could be enough to tilt the UK back into recession. The economy grew by a disappointing 0.1 per cent in the final quarter of last year, and the fragile revival could easily be derailed. Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank in London, warned: 'These problems could be a dress rehearsal for what the U.S. and UK may face further down the road.' Around half the UK's trade is with Europe, so if countries there are forced to curtail their spending and raise taxes, it is likely to depress demand for our exports

The second big accusation is that the British are trying to cover up the woes in their own economy and public finances. I can only say, has anyone looked at a British newspaper recently? I was in London yesterday: my home country is entering a hard-fought general election campaign utterly dominated by the dire state of the economy and public finances. Here is a selection of fresh headlines:

From the Financial Times: Britain has been hit harder than you think.

From the Daily Telegraph: Which party will have "AAA" policies for the economy?

From the Times: Credit binge takes toll as 134,000 become insolvent

From the Guardian: Jitters in Cameron camp as economy threatens to derail Tory bandwagon

From The Economist: Clearing up the mess

There is plenty more where that came from. And all of it as gloomy as you like. So in short, is the British press being tough on the south of Europe right now? Yes. But still tougher on Britain.

COME on Catherine Ashton, slap the Spanish down. Start with the unhelpful comments coming from Spain about lifting the EU arms embargo on China. As a member of the European Union, Spain is free (though wrong-headed) to think that lifting the embargo is a good way to suck up to China. As holder of the rotating presidency of the EU until July 1st, Spain also has every right to seek to influence the agenda on various policy areas, such as trade with China.

But when it comes to the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty makes it quite clear: it is time for countries that hold the rotating presidency to pipe down, and take a back seat. Meetings of foreign ministers are chaired by Baroness Ashton, as High Representative. Move up a level from ministers, and when it comes to CFSP decisions by heads of state and government, responsibility for announcing those to the outside world falls under the new permanent president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. This may sound arcane, but it is about something pretty simple: one of the big promises was that Lisbon would end the unhelpful cacophony of EU relations with big, important powers like China. Once the line from Europe stopped changing every six months with each new rotating presidency, the theory went, it would be easier for the union to "speak with one voice", in the well-worn phrase.

So what are the Spanish playing at? As it happens, in the last couple of weeks, I have been speaking to senior figures from Europe, China and America about the arms embargo. Here is what I have heard. For starters, there is no significant movement on this dossier, which has been frozen since 2004 when Europe buckled to American pressure and scrapped plans to end the embargo (imposed after 1989, and the bloody repression of demonstrations in Tiananmen Square). Lifting the embargo would take consensus among the 27 members of the club. No such consensus exists.

Secondly, nobody can quite fathom what the Spanish are up to. For diplomatic reasons, people are being terribly nice about the way the Spanish are throwing their weight around and acting as if they are running a pre-Lisbon rotating presidency. Last week, one senior European politician told a small group of reporters about how we had to understand the Spanish position because they had put so much work into preparing their six month stint in the chair of EU meetings, on the basis that Lisbon might have been delayed yet again—leaving them to play the role of a traditional presidency. Given that they had gone to all this trouble, the politician said, it was fair to regard Spain as a "transitional presidency" between the pre and post Lisbon age.

On the arms embargo, some reports have pinned the blame on Spain's ambassador to China, Carlos Blasco Villa. There have been hints that he may have been freelancing a bit when he told the state-run newspaper, the China Daily, that Spain's presidency hopes to "deepen discussions [within the EU] on lifting the ban."

Others in the corridors of Brussels power are less indulgent, noting that the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos said much the same things himself a few days later, in response to journalists' questions. Mr Moratinos, who is said to think he could have had Lady Ashton's job for himself but was blocked by his own prime minister, said Spain was "weighing the pros and cons" of the arms embargo. Spain was in favour of lifting the embargo, he added.

After all, he said: "We are all aware of the new role which China is assuming in the world."

Well yes. But in the context of arms sales, what exactly are we aware of? We know that in the past decade China has startled all outside military analysts with the vast sums it has poured into its military, and the speed with which it has built up crucial capabilities like its submarine fleet, its anti-ship missile systems and its blue water navy. We are a long way from the days, 10 years ago, when one American expert breezily described defeating the PLA navy to me as "an interesting morning's work". We know that China's arms build-up has been built up around the ability to place Taiwan in threat, and ultimately to attack that democratic, pro-Western island if its rulers declared independence, while holding the American navy off for long enough that Taiwan would have come to terms. We know that China is also building up its strengths in deploying force around south-east Asia, where it makes disputed claims to large areas of maritime territory.

Is that military rise in Europe's interests? I would argue no: China's growing military probably makes an important region less stable, on balance. It also adds to the headaches of our ally, America, which is committed to keeping the peace in the Taiwan Straits.

But was it China the military power that Mr Moratinos was talking about? No, he was talking about the China that is currently powering the global economic recovery. And what he really means, of course, is that Europe should ignore its qualms about scary re-arming China if it helps Europe curry favour with China, the economic power-house.

European diplomats frequently make the point that lifting the embargo will not lead to advanced weapons flowing to China, as any lifting of the embargo would be accompanied by a tough code of conduct, limiting arms sales. This is a fair point, except that politics is about symbolism, and the symbolism here is all about Europe endorsing a better-armed China. Even supporters of lifting the embargo make this point. One of the more Jesuitical arguments I heard recently for lifting the embargo was that Europe wants China to provide more peace-keepers around the world, and those peace-keepers will need guns from somewhere. Hmm. Looking at images of the PLA on exercise and parade, I don't think they need European guns to turn out a well-equipped peace-keeper or two. The Chinese too frame the arms embargo in symbolic terms: it is about Europe endorsing China's right to rise as a legitimate strategic and military power. (Indeed, in a recent print column, I noted the fabulously hubristic line from one Chinese senior official, who warned EU envoys that if they did not lift the embargo, in years from now Europe would not be able to buy its weapons from China).

So is the embargo going to be lifted? Not soon. What is going on, as usual, is that individual EU countries are attempted to suck up by positioning themselves publicly as calling for its lifting. France has played those games for years. Here is Jacques Chirac, talking to China's official news agency in 2004, and happily underlining how France was going against the Americans on this:

"As you know, France favours lifting the embargo, and as you know, our American friends have strong reservations about it. As for us, we shall try to obtain the swiftest possible lifting by the European Union of this embargo, which is of another time, and no longer corresponds to today's realities."

Back in 2004, it was American pressure that caused the EU to buckle, though Europeans used the excuse of a neatly-timed new law in China, asserting the right to  use force to prevent Taiwanese independence (the Europeans said they were shocked, shocked by the new law, though its passage had been known about for ages).

It remains American pressure that keeps Europe divided. Those robustly in favour of lifting the embargo probably include France, Spain, Greece, Malta, Romania and Bulgaria, I am told, as well as Cyprus (which is close to a spokesman for Russian and Chinese diplomatic interests within the EU, so that its positions on things like Tibet are sometimes more pro-Chinese than those even China is seeking). Germany has moved position under Angela Merkel, and now is close to the British line: possibly prepared to tolerate a change on the arms embargo some day, but not at the cost of a terrible bust-up with America. Italy's position on China is "mixed", I am told. On the one hand, Silvio Berlusconi seemingly never met a dictatorship he did not like, from Libya to Belarus. On the other, Italian industry is forever calling for protectionist barriers to be erected against Chinese exports.

Finally, the word in Brussels is that the Europan Parliament should not be ignored on this dossier. Even if the parliament has no legal say in the matter, it voted a symbolic resolution in 2008 against lifting the arms embargo, until China stopped supporting some of the nastiest regimes in Africa. Since then, Chinese bullying has only soured the mood in the parliament, whose opposition would, at least, cause national governments lots of embarrassing headlines, if they tried to lift the arms ban.

So, to end a very long posting (it is a complicated story), slapping down Spain on this is cost-free, in terms of EU unity, because their proposal does not enjoy any real momentum. And given that half the diplomats in Brussels are waiting to see Lady Ashton stamp her authority on someone, anyone, why not start with Mr Moratinos on China? She could buy one of those t-shirts that popped up after King Juan Carlos had his run-in with Hugo Chávez, a while back, quoting the regal sugestion: "Por qué no te callas?"

IN Brussels policy circles, the question asked about a bailout of Greece used to be: are European Union governments willing to do this? Now, I can report, the question among top EU officials has changed to: how do we do this?

Twice in the past 48 hours I have heard very senior figures—both speaking on deep background—ponder the political mechanics of how large sums in external aid could be delivered to Greece before it defaults on its debts: a crisis that would have nasty knock-on effects for the 16 countries that share the single currency.

One figure said yesterday that heads of government could not wait "forever" to take decision. That means a decision in the next few months, at most. Greece's draft plans for reducing its deficit from around 13% to 3% in three years did not seem credible, said this source. Thus a crisis loomed. "We need to help them," he said. This means "external aid" of some sort, in exchange for strict conditions. As a top priority, conditions would have to include a complete change in the way that economic statistics are collected in Greece, ending years of political manipulation and book-cooking so that data from Greece can be relied upon (indeed, the distrust is so deep that nobody would be astonished if even the latest Greek deficit number of almost 13% underestimates the full horror of the situation).

Both senior figures confirmed that it was politically unthinkable for the International Monetary Fund to intervene in a member of the euro zone. But Greece would have to agree to spending cuts every bit as painful as those that would be imposed by the IMF, it was said.

A third question (can a euro zone country legally be bailed out?) has been answered long ago. It is commonly said that the Maastricht Treaty rules establishing the euro include a no bailout clause. But as Tony Barber noted in his Financial Times blog this week, there are EU rules that allow for financial aid to countries in trouble due to exceptional crises. More technically still, the Maastricht rules in fact forbid other countries from assuming liability for the debts and commitments of fellow-members. That is not quite the same thing as a blanket ban on aid. In any case, the then German finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, let the cat out of the bag last February when he said: "The euro-region treaties do not foresee any help for insolvent states, but in reality the others would have to rescue those running into difficulty."

For several months, as the problems in Greece and other members of the euro zone deepened, there has been debate about whether other governments were willing to help. There was real anger among European officials and political leaders when the centre-left government elected last year turned round and informed Brussels that Greece's predicted deficit for 2009 would be 12.7% (or more than double what had been previously reported). Though in truth some of the shock was feigned: everyone had long suspected the deficit numbers being reported by the last centre-right government stank.

Last December's EU leaders' summit now looks like a clear turning point. At a private dinner with other leaders, George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, bared his country's soul. He described rampant corruption within the state, notably in the field of public procurement, and said his country had far too many layers of local government, some of which would need to be abolished. That candour seemed to shift elite opinion in his favour. His finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, has also been touring European capitals spreading the message that this time, Greece is serious. A smooth operator with a doctorate from the London School of Economics, Mr Papaconstantinou's road-show has been getting positive reviews.

What this does not mean is that other EU leaders believe that the current plan drafted by the Greek government is going to work, in terms of deficit reduction.

So now we are into how to help Greece. The technical mechanics of getting the money to Greece seem not to cause too much worry. I have heard senior figures talk about advancing Greece money from EU structural funds they were due to receive in the next few years, or about loans from government-owned savings institutions, such as the various Caisses des Dépôts and National Savings funds in the EU. There are "no taboos" on how to find the money, I was told, the goal is only to avoid actions that damage the credibility of the euro.

This brings me back to an interesting detail about the IMF. It is often said that the IMF cannot intervene within the euro zone because it would be too humiliating, politically, for the EU to admit it could not look after one of its core members. That is clearly a view shared by senior officials. However, one source offered a further reason why the IMF is not welcome that I had not heard before. The fund's experts typically offer countries in trouble a mixture of fiscal and monetary advice, he explained: ie, they tell countries to cut public spending and raise taxes, but also to alter interest rates and take steps to stabilise their currency. If the IMF told Greece to cut public sector salaries, say, that would not shock the rest of the EU, he said. But what if the IMF demands that Greece tighten or loosen its monetary policy? Greece shares its monetary policy with the other 15 members of the euro zone: would the ECB be expected to change its monetary policies? And what would Germany have to say about that?

How soon could we see action? Well, European heads of government are now busy talking to each other about this, or rather their top officials are. Leaders themselves will meet for an informal economic strategy summit in Brussels on February 11th.

The word going out is, don't panic. Greece only accounts for between two and three percent of Union GDP: its woes are astonishing (and largely self-inflicted, despite the conspiracy theories swirling within Greece), but they are "affordable", senior figures say. I wonder if people are being too calm. It is one thing to talk about external aid in exchange for tough conditions. But what if those conditions are politically impossible to meet? I am not talking about reliable statistics, it must be possible to parachute in crack EU auditors to watch for political manipulation. But as I wrote in an earlier blog posting, if the EU finds itself asking for IMF-style budget cuts in Greece, the political consequences will be grim. If I were the European Commission delegation office in Athens, I would be buying some fire extinguishers.

DER Spiegel, the German news magazine, has caused a stir in Brussels by reprinting bits of an unusually gloomy internal report from the European Commission on the euro zone (the 16 countries that use the single currency). In particular, people have focussed on the report's finding that differing competitiveness among euro zone countries is "a cause of serious concern for the euro area as a whole." In a widely quoted extract, the report seen by Spiegel frets that:

...differences among euro zone countries "jeopardize confidence in the euro and threatens the cohesiveness of the euro area."

British Eurosceptics who have been predicting the collapse of the euro since before it was even created will no doubt be nodding sagely and feeling vindicated. Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom crowd in Brussels is running around saying that the only logical solution to divergences between countries like Greece and countries like Germany is a sudden leap forwards in political and economic integration. Here, is the opening of a particularly fatuous dispatch from Agence France Presse yesterday:

(BRUSSELS) - There's no such thing as the United States of Europe, but are the continent's national leaders beginning to wonder if there might not have to be to avoid another Greek debt crisis?

When the 27 countries that make up the European Union gather next month to shape common economic planning for the next decade, the strains Athens has placed on its core currency could yet find far-reaching ramifications.

Certainly, allowing Brussels to poke its nose into national statistical reporting—as is being mooted—is unlikely to be the last direct consequence of Greek profligacy for EU-wide governance.

This is a blog posting, not a print column based on wide-ranging interviews, and I am not about to stick my neck out here and now and predict the medium-term future of the single currency. But here are some quick thoughts about the politics of all this, for what they are worth.

First a thought so simple that it should not need stating. Eurosceptics who think the euro zone is about to break up are wilfully underestimating (and have always underestimated) the political prestige that rides on the single currency's survival, and thus the pain that big rich members will be prepared to endure to keep the euro zone intact. Secondly, and again it should not need stating, it will take something a lot bigger than a Greek debt crisis to reverse the current political tide flowing away from the creation of a United States of Europe. The big countries that have driven integration before, starting with Germany and France, are in a completely different place now. Even the Benelux nations, the core of the core in the old days, do not agree on the degree of integration they would like to see: the Dutch have little appetite for bold leaps towards closer union.

Another modest thought. I struggle to see why the lines from the European Commission report quoted above have caused so much fuss. To me, they are a description of the obvious: of course differences within a single currency area cause concern and threaten cohesiveness. It was a different section of the commission report that caught my eye: a catalogue of the social and political pain that deeply indebted and uncompetitive members of the euro zone will have to accept. To quote the Spiegel piece:

The EU analysts from DG ECFIN propose rapidly balanced budgets and economic reforms. In addition, the report says that salaries will have to reflect reduced productivity and a loss of competitiveness. "The measures will be accompanied by a noticeable rise in unemployment."

The bloggers over at A Fistful of Euros offer a view of the Spiegel leak that puts the report neatly in context:

there would seem to be an underlying transition going on here, one which in EU terms is quite rapid. The EU’s own analysis of the problems in the Eurozone is coming nearer and nearer to that of both the IMF and the credit rating agencies. We are moving beyond short term fiscal deficit issues, and immediate liquidity issues, towards problems like competitiveness, and what was previously a taboo subject - the issue of Eurozone imbalances

Once the EU starts sounding like the IMF, the EU has a political problem. The EU wants (and arguably needs) to be loved if its grand bargain of liberalisation in exchange for redistribution is to maintain public support. The EU has a flag and an anthem and an annual Europe Day, on which flags are supposed to be waved to the strains of that anthem. Nobody suggests a public holiday in honour of the IMF.

Indeed, depending on how much weight you place on the question of competitive imbalances, the EU risks being even more unpopular than the IMF. At least the IMF only nags and arm-twists in countries on the brink of economic calamity. If the EU wants to tackle imbalances, it could find itself urging countries like Greece to grind their way towards an internal devaluation by accepting lower salaries and higher unemployment, while nagging countries like Germany to forget moral hazard and extend some form of bailout to Greece, and for good measure asking countries like Germany to alter policies that most Germans think have stood them in fine stead during this crisis (such as wage restraint and a focus on exports). Blaming Germany for being too competitive has always struck me as particularly poisonous in political terms. It is one thing to ask Germany or the Netherlands to stoke domestic consumption by lowering VAT rates, say. But as one German economist put it to me last year in Munich, is the German government meant to order individual companies to become less competitive on export markets? Are those companies supposed to hike salaries, stop innovating or sack their China sales team? Especially when German voters and businessmen are looking at places like Greece and Spain, and cannot see any signs (yet) of government policy shifts big and painful enough to tackle imbalances at their end.

Which brings me back to the nod to TS Eliot in the headline. In essence, I urge caution on any readers who see pieces arguing that huge changes are imminent in the EU, either in the direction of disintegration or much closer union. Looking at this politically, I think the short-term likelihood is of fudge and more fudge. European voters in all sorts of deeply indebted and troubled places from Greece to the country of my birth, Britain, say they realise how bad things are. But I think they are still in denial. In some places, such as Ireland or Latvia, people get it. In others, they do not yet. Which makes me think the immediate future is one of decline and the slow accumulation of misery. Whimpering awaits, in short, not bangs.

THERE are many things to worry about in Haiti just now. The immediate "visibility" of the European Union, you might think, is not one of them. Honourable members of the European Parliament, assembled in Strasbourg today, take a different view. Members queued up to give Catherine Ashton, the new EU foreign policy chief, a rough ride for failing to jump on a flight to Port-au-Prince this weekend, when Hillary Clinton was there.

Baroness Ashton told the MEPs she had thought hard about going, but finally decided to take United Nations advice and not take up precious landing space at the Haitian capital's crowded airport. "I had nothing to contribute on the ground other than taking up valuable space when planes were unable to land because of the state of the airfield... I am not a doctor, not a fire fighter. My place was to bring together co-ordination at EU level and with the UN," she said.

I hold no brief for Lady Ashton. You could argue that it was politically naive of her to head to join her family in London over the weekend, rather than be seen working at her desk in Brussels (though her spokesman said she was working on the dossier non-stop while in London).

But when it comes to whether she should have flown to Haiti, her critics are not just wrong, they are displaying the worst side of EU politics: chippiness, and an obsession with America. Just listen to what the MEPs said to the baroness, when she addressed them today. Joseph Daul, a French MEP and the leader of the centre-right EPP group, the largest block in the parliament, declared: "Just about everybody was in Haiti at the moment when these people are suffering, and Europe was not present."

Also from the EPP, the Irish member Gay Mitchell said: "the EU has to be more visible on the ground." The second largest block, the socialists, refrained from any attacks because Lady Ashton, as a Labour party politician, is nominally one of their number. The third block, the liberals, laid into her, however. Marielle de Sarnez, from France, told her: "politics is above all about symbols, and that is why I don't think you should be here, but in Haiti."

For the Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit complained that the American secretary of state had made it to Haiti, saying: "Clinton found it possible to go to Haiti, and I think that the European Union has to be there on the spot. Not just in the sidelines." The fact that the EU's development commissioner, Karel De Gucht, is going to Haiti this week, did not mollify him. Another Green MEP, Eva Joly contrasted the sums being pledged in aid for Haiti with the money found by the Obama administration for bailing out American banks.

A French communist MEP said the United States should not be allowed to "occupy" Haiti on the pretext of handing out aid. You could dismiss that as a rant from the far left, except for the fact that the French press has been bandying the word "occupation" about all weekend, notably after a junior French government minister for international co-operation lost his temper after a French aid flight was denied landing rights at Port-au-Prince by the American military. The minister, Alain Joyandet, issued a formal complaint through the French embassy, and declared: "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti." In fairness, the office of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has since moved to make clear there is no Franco-American spat over this, and praised the "exceptional" American response.

The European press has been more grown up than the politicians, on the whole. The Spanish newspaper, El País, which is a centre-left daily, has carried some vivid reports from the ground, which have been critical of some aspects of the American operation, but also argued that the high profile American presence has done more than anything else to send a message of hope to locals, that help is on the way. It is the same with this Guardian piece, which starts off pretty sceptical, but concedes the locals are "welcoming" of the American presence.

The main beef of the critical MEPs was that the EU is a more generous aid donor than anyone else (when you add up all contributions from all 27 members and the European Commission), and sticks around to rebuild disaster zones long after the rapid reaction forces from America have flown and steamed home. I remember the same comments after the South-East Asian tsunami and the Pakistani earthquake. (Indeed, I recall once sitting in the French foreign ministry hearing the then foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, almost quivering with rage at the fact that airplanes "with American flags on their tails" were on the tarmac in Pakistan before Europe could act). Well, let us hope the indignation of European politicians does not fade, and in the months and years to come, they remember that their claims to righteousness rest on long-term help with the rebuilding of poor, benighted Haiti.

WHY are the young so disappointing, when it comes to their manners, dress codes, or knowledge of the canon of Western civilisation? Ask a British or American conservative, and he will blame the left: the 1960s vintage teachers who disdain dead white guys like Shakespeare, the college campuses where Derrida and deconstruction have displaced reading actual literature or the egalitarian ethos of "all shall have prizes".

Ask someone from the left, for example in Britain, and they will trace the rot back to Thatcherism: the hostility to pure research, the focus on commercially-driven vocational education (all those degree courses in golf course management or marketing, elbowing aside history or Ancient Greek), or the dumbing down of examinations by ministers who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Luc Ferry, a prolific French philosopher and former education minister in the conservative government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, has a new book out, "Face à la crise: Matériaux pour une politique de civilisation", offering a distinctly Gallic view of the problem: the fault lies with globalisation.

Interviewed in the Belgian newspaper, Le Soir, Mr Ferry explains his theory with a portrait of an archetype, a French business tycoon who is appalled by the mumbling Philistines who turn up to his grandchildren's birthday party:

"Imagine him at home, the day perhaps when his grandchildren and their classmates come to a birthday tea in his lovely apartment. He is appalled. These young people, dreadfully turned out, are incapable of saying hello, thank you or goodbye politely. And have you had the miserable experience of talking to them about literature, music or history? It is like the Mongol hordes. They lack all culture, and as the national education system is impossible to reform we are inexorably headed for decline... Now, let us admit that his diagnosis is right. But the catch is this, and I tell him this as a friend: he bears complete and sole responsibility for this situation. And this is why. My imaginary CEO has only one wish: that our children should be ardent consumers. Now, in its purest form, consumption resembles an addiction. What is the definition of a drug addict? Someone who cannot help but seek bigger and bigger doses of a drug, and more and more frequently. In other words, the ideal customer for my CEO who has done all he can with his advertising campaigns to plunge our children into a state of chronic dependance. And so I say to him: you can't have your cake and eat it. You cannot have a well brought up child, who is cultured with good grammar and manners, who is also a consumerist/web and TV channel surfing child. The two types cannot co-exist in a single brain... Without realising it, the bourgeois businessman has become a revolutionary, tearing down traditional values because they act as a brake on consumption."

So, from the looks of it, everyone is to blame: politicians from left and right, and businessmen. Because as a parent, I must admit I worry about exams that become easier and easier to pass every year, and sigh at the lack of academic ambition in today's textbooks. I would rather my children did not study golf course management, and I think Cartoon Network, with its constant advertisments and cheap, violent cartoons, is not good for children's behaviour.

Or maybe, just maybe, rather than worrying about pinning the blame on other people, I should recognise that parents and grandparents have been sighing over the poor manners of the young since Noah. And that the world has always contained low and high culture, things that inspire and things that distract. And that it is above all a parent's responsibility to raise a balanced child. I was a terrible little swot as a child, but I still liked the A-Team. My children and their classmates seem to like both books and (bafflingly) Pokémon.

Students of irony may care to note, what is more, that only a DVD has kept this blogger's children distracted long enough to allow me to write this posting. So enough, I am off to speak to my children, and see if they remember me.

SO, this week's hearings of the future European Commission are turning into an inspiring display: politics at its finest. At the time of writing, the Bulgarian nominee, Rumiana Jeleva, is fulfilling predictions that she would prove the weakest member of the 26 strong line-up. Her formal hearing yesterday, on January 12th, was doubly chaotic. First, she faced a barrage of questions on her financial affairs, if something very disorganised can be called a barrage. Members of the European Parliament asked her lots of very detailed questions about a company that she said she used to work for, but which some insisted she still worked for, unless she had just sold it, in which case they wanted to know how much she had made from the sale. A fellow Bulgarian, but from the opposition Liberal party of the former king, popped up to suggest that perhaps she still owned the company but it had changed its name. In case there was anyone in the room who was not yet confused, papers in Bulgarian and German purporting to prove some of this started being handed round, until someone complained, at which point the chairman of the hearing, the Franco-Norwegian former investigating magistrate Eva Joly, told ushers to collect the papers back up again.

I was still following all of this, just, when Mrs Jeleva—until her nomination the foreign minister of Bulgaria—said that anyone who wanted to know what was really going on was invited to view all the relevant paperwork in her hometown. She also said, repeatedly, that she had been vetted by the Bulgarian parliament and the Bulgarian courts, whose record was "perfect", and that her financial affairs had been found to be in full accordance with Bulgarian law. Given that the general view in Brussels is that Bulgaria is a nest of organised crime and corruption, starting with the Bulgarian parliament and justice system, this was a bold defence, at best.

Then it got worse. Mrs Jeleva was asked about her new portfolio, an insultingly minimalist new brief created to minimise the damage she can do, centred on international co-operation and humanitarian aid. She appeared hazy about hotspots from Congo to Somalia, and brightly suggested she would be happy to talk to "moderate Taliban" about distributing aid in Afghanistan.

In short, not a good hearing. Now comes the politics. Mrs Jeleva, though not exactly a great commissioner-designate, has powerful friends in the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament, the European People's Party (EPP). Her national party, GERB, run by the former bodyguard and police chief Boyko Borisov, has especially close links to the German and Bavarian centre-right. That may help explain why the EPP mounted such a vigorous defence of Mrs Jeleva. Joseph Daul, the French head of the EPP in the parliament, said she had been led to a political "slaughterhouse", adding that as a former farmer, he knew his slaughterhouses. Other EPP types let it be known that if Mrs Jeleva was for the high jump, they would require a Socialist nominee to be taken out, for balance. The problem, as described by MEPs, was that none of the Socialists had done badly enough in their hearings to be made into credible sacrifices. At which point the EPP found an old alleged quote from the Slovak nominee, Maros Sefcovic, who has not had his hearing yet, suggesting that Roma citizens exploit the Slovak welfare system. A Hungarian vice-chairman of the EPP,  Jozsef Szajer, briefed journalists about this today, in a clear hint that Mr Sefcovic could be the fall guy.

In the meantime, the steam had more or less run out of the Jeleva financial declaration row, not least because everyone who wanted copies of the original documents now had them, and had just remembered they did not speak or read Bulgarian. Unity among the opposition political groups then splintered. The Socialists, led by Martin Schulz, did what Mr Schulz always does in times of trouble: pass the buck to the European Commission and its president, José Manuel Barroso. Briefings were given that Mr Schulz had written to Mr Barroso on Wednesday afternoon, declaring he had no confidence in Mrs Jeleva. This letter then did not appear to have arrived, mysteriously, and instead the official socialist position became that they were waiting for the commission to confirm that the Jeleva paperwork was all in order. Meanwhile, the Liberals and Greens shrewdly chose to move away from the tangled financial stuff, and briefed that they had problems with Mrs Jeleva's weak performance on her portfolio.

The latest rumour to reach me, before I lost the will to keep asking questions, was that the EPP are now trying to split Mr Schulz away from the Liberals and the Greens by noting that he is the one facing the retaliatory loss of a Socialist nominee, Mr Sefcovic, while the Liberals and the Greens face no losses at all, and only the glory of claiming Mrs Jeleva's scalp.

On a brighter note, I did enjoy this Socialist group press release, simultaneously denouncing Mrs Jeleva as "not convincing" and denouncing Mr Barroso for giving her a "lightweight" portfolio. I am reminded of the Woody Allen joke about two old ladies in the restaurant of the Empire State Building. "Isn't the food here dreadful", says the first. "Oh yes, the worst," says the second. "And such small portions."

Just in case this story is suffering from too much clarity, here is a link to a television programme from Bulgaria, broadcast last year, showing Mrs Jeleva dancing the rumba (hat tip, Jean Quatremer).